Features

The story of Skullgirls‘ development, release and post-release support just may have more twists to it than its top-heavy characters have curves on their pixelated bodies. It started with two men, each with a skill, a passion and an idea. In 2009, longtime fighting game fan and tournament player Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont began programming a fighting game of his own. Elsewhere, unbeknownst to Zaimont at the time, artist Alex “o_8” Ahad was drawing a new fighting game universe of his own into existence, complete with characters to populate it. Eventually the two were introduced and merged their pet projects together at Reverge Labs into the game that released on XBLA and PSN in April of last year as Skullgirls.

Critics generally gave the game a favorable reception, with its combined XBLA and PSN score averaging 80% on Metacritic. Gamers gave it a fairly warm reception, too. The developer was excited when Skullgirls sold 50,000 copies in its first 10 days on the market. Although the development team informed XBLAFans on Thursday that Skullgirls has failed to turn a profit to date, we were also informed that the game has performed well enough that publisher Autumn Games is interested in green-lighting a sequel if it can successfully dodge the sticks and stones City National Bank has thrown its way.

With a PC version, DLC characters and multiple sequels in the plans, things were looking up for Zaimont, Ahad and the rest of the crew at Reverge. Then everything went quiet. Months went by without a single update on the port, downloadable content or the sequel. It was eventually revealed that the Skullgirls team had been let go by Reverge Labs in June of 2012 after developer and publisher allowed their contract to expire without agreeing upon a new one. More sticks. More stones.

Whether it was the entire team that was let go or some fraction of it has been a matter that was up for some debate. Reverge blogged that it was some of the team, while the displaced developers once said it was “the entire” team. When questioned repeatedly by XBLAFans over the past couple of months, neither of those factions nor Autumn has been willing to go on record to clear the air. The one thing that has been abundantly clear, though, is that the contract expiration effectively brought about a game over screen for future Skullgirls content and its would-be creators.

Or did it?

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Furthermore, share with us your longest gaming session and for what game!

What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re …
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Oh man, we love us some 360 controllers. They fit any size hands, unlike the Sony controllers, and despite the less-than-stellar stock d-pad they’re a dream to use. But it’s not just about functionality, it’s about collectability. And with 33 official Microsoft controllers to hunt down there’s no shortage of game for the hunter.

But some controllers may only interest you from an aesthetic standpoint, and so in addition to a rarity rating for each controller we’ve also listed an availability level for replacement parts should you want to transform your existing controllers. So instead of buying an all new controller you can give that nasty, sticky-buttoned gamepad new life and a wicked shell. When searching for custom shell parts remember to stick with vendors that have high reputability or high eBay ratings. There are a lot of cheap knockoffs that look the same in a picture but fit poorly. As per our recent review, we recommend Quickdrawmods if you’re looking for shells that have a Low or above availability rating. Past that go for eBay sellers with high ratings (both in percentage and number of ratings). Also be sure to pick up a Torx T8 security bit screwdriver from whoever you buy your first shell from. It’s invaluable, and they’re usually dirt cheap.

So without further ado we present the 32 Microsoft produced 360 controllers: row by row, left to right.

UPDATE: Added a missing controller to bottom right of the above, along with a description below.

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XBLA Fans recently had the opportunity to chat with Pawel Lekki, COO at Exor Studios. Exor’s Zombie Driver HD released on XBLA this past October, and Lekki was more than willing to talk about the title as well as his background in game development.

Pawel, please tell us a few things about yourself outside of the world of gaming.

I think there isn’t much outside the world of gaming because I spend most of my day at work to be honest. But if I’m not working I enjoy travelling by car around Europe. Moving around in your own vehicle gives a lot of freedom, and I annually make road trips with a few friends. Our record braking trip so far was visiting 11 countries in 7 days with a total of 5000km on the road.

How did you get into game development?

The first gaming-related thing I did [actually involved] classic role playing games. I was a game master for 5 years, and together with our team we created our own version of one of the popular RPG systems. I guess you could say we started modding with pen and paper.

When it comes to traditional computer game development, I started by making levels for various games with my brother. The first game for which we made our own maps was Age of Empires, then StarCraft, and later we moved on to first person shooters like Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 and Half-Life. The first Make Something Unreal contest actually played an important role in our journey because it made us go public and share our works on the internet. After that we started working on mods for Half-Life and informally started Exor as a modding group. Our first public mod was ‘D.I.P.R.I.P.’ for Half-Life 2 and because of our work on it we were all hired by a Finnish mobile game development company called Gamelion. That was the beginning of my professional game development career which started 7 years ago.

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What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re …
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Be a pro at defending The Shire
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Another year is in the books, and, as expected, XBLA has continued to grow and reach milestones that one would not have imagined possible seven years ago when the first few XBLA games released. In 2012, XBLA games set many records only to break those same records again and again in the ensuing weeks. From Fez to Trials Evolution to Minecraft, the downloads just kept queuing up all over the world. The success of XBLA in 2012 was impressive to say the least.

That meant that we had quite the task in front of us when coming together as a staff to try to decide which game to pick for each Game of the Year category below. The nominee list for each category offered so many great choices, but at the end of the day, only one game could win each award and as a staff of passionate XBLA gamers, we think we did a pretty good job of presenting the highlights of Xbox Live Arcade in 2012. Hope you like what we picked, but if not, let us know in the comments what you would have voted for. Without further delay, here are the 2012 XBLA Fans Game of the Year awards as chosen by the XBLA Fans staff.

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What we are playing is a weekly column published on Sunday. Select members of the team talk about the games they’ve been playing over the past week and which they’re …
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Weekly Roundup compiles all the biggest news stories, reviews and features from the week into one handy post on the weekends.

The holidays are officially upon us. It’s been a busy week around these parts, thanks to our own Andrew Crews, who’s diligently orchestrated yet another year of fantastic giveaways. Today marks the end of The 12 Days of XBLA, and your last chance to score the amazing Grand Prize worth $55 in Xbox Live Arcade games. Be sure to check out the final entry of the contest, and toss your hat in the ring. Finally, we want to wish everyone a very Happy Holidays from all of us here at XBLAFans!

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